PSJA Memorial Early College High School Students to Host Business and Community Expo on November 17th

PSJA Memorial Early College High School and its Career and Technical Education (CTE) Department will be hosting a Business and Community Expo on November 17, 2016 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM in the campus’s gym. Memorial ECHS Skills USA Club will be the event’s proud host.

Teachers and Students Positively Impacting Our Community

This expo is specifically designed to enhance the students’ education but will offer important public networking opportunities for businesses, the community and students. Local business can present new ideas, information and resources to the public and have a great opportunity to gain visibility, name recognition, and new business potential in the PSJA community.

“One of our goals in the CTE Department is to provide our students with the training and experiences during class time and after school so that they may obtain certification in employability skills. By helping to organize the Business and Community Expo, the students will gain valuable skills required in today’s workforce including fundamental, interpersonal, technical and communication skills,” Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher Linda Gutierrez said.

Students have been assigned different duties during the organization of the expo, including recruitment of local businesses by making personal teacher supervised visits to the businesses, making phone calls, sending emails and inviting the community to the expo. They have also been in charge of collecting money and writing receipts. In addition, the students developed a floor plan to assign tables and spaces to each registered business, will serve as hosts for all those in attendance and will assist the businesses with their assigned spaces.

Planning for a Successful Event While Gaining Employability Skills

Planning for this event began in September with scheduled after-school meetings once a week as well as spur-of-the-moment meetings with some of the students and other sponsors. Initially, the students seemed hesitant to participate. One student even expressed that such a project should not take place at the school since no one would be interested. Since then, most of my students have taken an interest at different levels to play a role in ensuring that the Expo is successful and that they are a part of the event. After the project has taken place, students will have gained approximately 20 hours of experience in employability skills.

“Although it has been difficult to find the time in the day to accomplish our goals during this project, I have been fortunate to have the assistance of my colleagues, administrative support, many hardworking students and the custodial staff. Any difficulties experienced have been rewarded by observing how several of my students have overcome their inhibitions and actively demonstrated their skills with business recruitment while developing working relationships with other students,” Gutierrez added.

How it Impacts Alamo

Alamo is part of the emerging McAllen, Edinburg and Mission region and has surpassed El Paso, Corpus Christi and Beaumont-Port Arthur as the fifth largest metropolitan statistical area in Texas. With a growing residential base, it’s important to invest in our students and residents.

As stated by the Economic Policy Institute, ”A well-educated workforce is key to state prosperity.” By providing more resources through job development skills such as Skills USA, more opportunities for our residents will become available. Incomes and wages can then increase, causing an investment return that can allow workers to spend more in their local economy, attracting more businesses to an already growing area that has a $500 million potential retail demand.

Invest in Our City

The Alamo Economic Development Corporation (EDC) is dedicated to promoting and providing new business opportunities that will help the growth of our community and programs that foster the educational advancement of our residents, students and the South Texas region as a whole. Through local incentives, businesses have a prime opportunity for land investment and access to a skilled workforce. These incentives are designed to spur private sector investments and job creation that ultimately support sustainable economic development strategies, leveraging investments from other public and private sources. For more information on these initiatives, contact the Alamo EDC at 956.787.6622. For more information on the Business and Community Expo, call 956.354.2420.